Category: Travel

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Cruising Lisbon to Barcelona, and Everywhere in Between

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A few days ago, I returned from a two-and-a-half-week Windstar cruise-plus trip around the Mediterranean. We started in Lisbon and ended in Barcelona, but made several stops along the way, including Gibraltar, and Morocco. Here are the places we stopped. It was an amazing experience.

Windstar cruise Lisbon to Barcelona

This is our fourth Windstar trip. Previously we sailed in the Caribbean, yachted in the Baltic Sea, and motored from Hong Kong to Singapore via the Philippines, Borneo, and Brunei. We were supposed to be on another trip in the Caribbean to northern South America in December 2019 but it was canceled at the last minute due to mechanical difficulties. Then COVID hit and nothing happened for a while. Last year we were booked for a trip starting and ending in Istanbul that bounced around the Black Sea, including Odessa, Ukraine. Needless to say, the cruise line canceled that trip as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine. We ended up in Iceland instead, then a trip to Tanazania near the end of 2022. This was our first Windstar since late 2018 and it was wonderful. The ships carry only about 300 passengers, so unlike the big multi-thousand hotel ships, Windstar gives you the chance to get to know the other passengers and crew.

Looking at the map above you can see there are a lot of markers inland. Obviously, we didn’t sail the ship to Marrakesh, but in retrospect it turned out that we took excursions to other cities at each stop other than Gibraltar. That expanded the cultural immersion immensely.

We arrived in Lisbon, Portugal early on Thursday. The cruise didn’t board until Saturday afternoon so we played tourist in the city, hitting all the hot spots like the castle, the Belem tower, the Monument to the Discoveries, and wandering the neighborhoods. On Friday we took the train out to Sintra. Not only was it the only rainy day during the entire trip, it was a day of deluge. It rained so hard it soaked through my otherwise trusty umbrella and created its own rain on me. Still, it was worth the trip. I had been in Lisbon and Sintra about 15 years ago but hadn’t planned ahead so didn’t even see much other than the famed Oceanario.

The first stop on the ship was Gibraltar and a tour around the “Rock” and its famous apes and St. Michael’s Cave. Then we were off to Casablanca, Morocco. I had always wanted to visit because of the Humphrey Bogart movie, but was told by others that the trip out to Marrakesh was a better use of time. So onto a 12-hour excursion to the city made famous (at least to me) by the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song, “Marrakesh Express.” Long day but worth it.

Then it was back to bounce around Spain. Porting at Cadiz overnight, we spent one day roaming the city and another day going out to Jerez, where we toured a vineyard, wine cellar, and best of all, got to taste two kinds of sherry and a brandy. [Yes, we bought some to take home] Malaga was another overnighter so we walked Picasso’s birth city one day and on the other day took a trip out to Cordoba, home of a huge mosque that was turned into a church (the mosque had been built on a previous church; such back and forth happened a lot as the Muslim Moors and Christians took turns invading each other’s space). Our stop in Cartagena gave us an opportunity to go out to Murcia, heavy in preparations for one of the seemingly ubiquitous music festivals, and still had plenty of time to wander the city of Cartagena itself.

The Windstar cruise ended in Barcelona, Spain. Again, I had been there about 15 years ago but only for a day. This time I was determined to get into the Sagrada Familia (which has grown a lot in 15 years), the Picasso Museum, and spend some time in the Catalonian city of Gaudi. In keeping with the trend of maximizing the opportunities, we took a 3+ hour bus ride from Barcelona to the tiny country of Andorra, deep in the Pyrenees mountains nestled on the border between Spain and France. I’ll write more later, but one thing I noticed is that is that English seemed to disappear as we got into the Catalonia region of Spain. Barcelonians and the greater Catalonians are feverishly protective of their Catalan heritage, going so far as to declare their independence from Spain (which neither Spain nor any other country I’m aware of has conceded to). This was especially true in Andorra where I had to struggle through my rudimentary Spanish and French just to order lunch (the waitress laughed when I asked for an English menu).

Two and half weeks later we’re back in the USA, having visited five countries, thirteen cities, one aquarium, and two or three thousand photo opportunities. It will take a while to sort through the photos, but I’ll be back to flesh out the highlights of key stops.

[Map created by Ru Sun, who in addition to being such a great travel companion, had to survive my temporary insanity in the tower of the Sagrada Familia.]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Unexpected Lincoln – Concord, Massachusetts

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Lincoln in Concord MAIt seems Abraham Lincoln is everywhere. Our continuing “unexpected Lincoln” series takes us to Concord, Massachusetts, home of Henry David Thoreau and just steps away from “the shot heard round the world.” I stopped in Concord on a recent road trip to see a special Lincoln Memorial Centennial exhibit at Concord Museum. Not only was Lincoln there, but it turns out Concord was a hotbed of abolitionist fever – and famous thinkers so thick you couldn’t help running into one in the 1840s-50s.

The museum was sponsoring an exhibit called “The Lincoln Memorial Illustrated.” A collaboration by Daniel Chester French’s studio at Chesterwood and the Norman Rockwell Museum in western Massachusetts (which hosted the original installation throughout the summer of 2022); the exhibit is only in Concord until February 26, 2023. As the title suggests, it focused on illustrations, sculpture, archival materials, and ephemera as it traced the Lincoln Memorial’s role as a symbolic site for some of the nation’s most important events and movements. Many of the pieces are political cartoons, often showing how the famed Lincoln statue reacted to key historical events. Included are Bill Mauldin’s depiction of Lincoln crying upon hearing of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, John Darkow’s Lincoln giving a thumbs up to the newly elected President Barack Obama, and Matt Davies’s Lincoln and his chair flipped over backwards in disbelief after the 2016 election results.

Other artwork includes both pen and ink and watercolor depictions of watershed events at the Lincoln Memorial featuring Marian Anderson, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, and the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial itself in 1922. There is also the original oil on canvas painting by Norman Rockwell called “Lincoln for the Defense,” a rare full-length painting of him (and rarer still – in a white suit). Rockwell’s print of Mathew Brady photograph is included, as is a watercolor painting by Anthony Benedetto, better known to most of us as singer Tony Bennett.

I was fascinated by one additional item on display – the account book kept by Daniel Chester French, a detailed record keeper, who recorded his contract payments for the Lincoln Memorial statue ($45,000 increased to $88,400), along with records of payments to the Piccirilli Brothers for marble carving and other work.

Beyond the Lincoln Memorial Illustrated exhibit, the Concord Museum also gave insights into the intellectual community of Concord, which included not only Emerson and Thoreau, but Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. More recently, Doris Kearns Goodwin joined the party. Concord has another claim to fame. While the writers were writing, the women of the town were organizing the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society. Founded in 1837, the Society was hugely influential in New England, hosting abolitionist speakers such as John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, and Frederick Douglass. Many Concord residents provided housing for fugitive slaves and helped them to continue their travels on the underground railroad. Despite growing up only an hour north of Concord, this is something I hadn’t known before my visit.

 

A bonus – Daniel Chester French not only designed the statue of Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, he created the Minuteman statue that sits just of North Bridge. Emerson’s childhood home overlooks the statue and the park. You can almost hear that mighty shot ring out as you soak in American history bridging the beginning of the nation and Lincoln’s saving of the nation.

All photos by David J. Kent

[NOTE: This article originally appeared at Lincolnian.org]

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The Year in a Traveler’s Life – 2022

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David and the Lion - TanzaniaSome followers will recall that my annual travel roundup has been called “The Year in Science Traveling” since its inception many years ago. I’ve decided to change it to “The Year in a Traveler’s Life” from this point forward to reflect my broader traveling experiences. Given my writing history, which I’ll capture shortly in my “writer’s life” annual post, much of my travel includes Lincoln-themed locations. That said, I still do a lot of science traveling and this year was no exception. In fact, it was almost a normal travel year after two-plus years of COVID travel restrictions. In 2022 I made my first overseas trips since I went to Cuba in May of 2019. It was nice to see more of the world again.

The travel year didn’t start well. We had planned a small ship cruise beginning and ending in Istanbul, Turkey. It would have taken us into the Black Sea with stops in Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine (Odesa), Russia (Sochi), Georgia, and a few additional spots in Turkey (including Cappadocia). Although it was scheduled for September, by March it was clear that was not going to happen. Not surprisingly, the cruise was cancelled soon after Russia invaded Ukraine and our attention switched to focusing on supporting a Ukrainian friend with whom we had traveled previously. With the Black Sea off the table, we looked for alternatives and found a quick booking for a tour of Iceland, a place that has been on my bucket list for many years. Iceland was a wonderful experience as we circled the island, stopping at a seemingly infinite number of spectacular waterfalls. We also saw volcanoes, luckily all dormant at the moment. Not long after getting home there was a volcano spewing ash and lava not far from the airport we had traveled from. While there I saw the Eyjafjallajökull volcano that had disrupted air travel for weeks in 2010 while I was living in Brussels. Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice, and this trip certainly proved that catchphrase true. A truly amazing experience, including hiking behind a large waterfall (and getting drenched) and seeing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge that passes through the island.

Meanwhile, around the time of our Iceland trip we committed to a photo safari in Tanzania, which we took in late November into early December. This was our first time in Africa, our sixth continent (still working on getting to Antarctica). The trip came about through a friend we’ve traveled with two times before. I had met her in 2013 when my first Tesla book was coming out (we were both involved with the Tesla Science Foundation and her mother is from Serbia, like Tesla). Since then, we’ve joined her and her travel organization, EuroCircle, on two trips. The first took us to Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia, one of the highlights of which was meeting the Prince and Princess of Serbia in the Royal Palace. The second was to Australia and New Zealand. This time we flew for over 13 hours to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, then another 2.5 hours to Arusha, Tanzania. After a night in a small hotel outside the city, we spent the following week in the bush, living in different tented lodges each night (including the one where giraffes and wildebeests snorted and roamed outside our tent all night). We saw thousands of animals – elephants, lions, wildebeest, buffalo, zebras, antelopes, cheetahs, leopards, and tons of bird species – as we wandered through three national parks (Tarangire, Serengeti, Mt. Kilimanjaro) and the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area, plus the rift valley. We even did some sunrise ballooning over the Serengeti. I’ll have more stories and photos as I get the time to sort through them.

Besides the two overseas trips, we made two road trips up to New England. The first in June was to celebrate my mother’s milestone birthday, while the second was actually my first time in many years visiting family for Christmas. I’ve taken to adding side trips to these visits. Last year I tacked on a mini-vacation on Long Island on the trip up and this year’s June visit included a one-night stop in Hartford, CT to see an Abraham Lincoln tribute river walk complete with sculptures of various styles. For the Christmas trip, because of traffic and some tentative weather forecasts, there was no overnight stop but on the way, I steered the car into Concord, MA. I had started reading a book called The People of Concord just before the drive and wanted to learn more about the vibrant writer community there in the 1800s. I also wanted to stop at the Concord Museum because the Lincoln Memorial Centennial special exhibit that I had missed earlier in the year when it was in western Massachusetts was resident in Concord only until February. The exhibit and the Museum were both fabulous and well worth the stop. A brief side trip on the way back involved Henry Wilson, a Senator during the Civil War that played major roles in at least two Lincoln achievements (later he was Ulysses S. Grant’s second vice president).

There was one more short travel event in November. I attended the Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg, PA, where I gave some presentations and accepted the prestigious Wendy Allen Award on behalf of the Lincoln Group of DC, of which I am currently president.

Overall, it was a good travel year despite the challenges (not mention being busy with my book release, which I’ll talk more about in my annual writer’s life post).

So, what’s up for 2023?

Fingers crossed that we don’t get a resurgence of COVID or some other pandemic-related restrictions. But assuming a year at least as available as this one, 2023 should be a good travel year. We’re already booked on a Windstar small ship cruise in April from Lisbon to Barcelona with many stops along the way, including Casablanca, Morocco. That will give us a second country in Africa and a far different experience than Tanzania. Earlier in the April I’ll be doing a road trip to New England that will combine my previously planned “Chasing Abraham Lincoln” stops plus some more related to a possible new writing project. November will have the annual Lincoln Forum. Beyond that, the travel schedule is still in flux. There are a couple of big overseas options I’m considering for late in the year, but I would like to get some sort of travel – either overseas or road trip – in during the summer. I’ll also plan on road tripping to see family at least twice more in the year, plus some shorter day-tripping to see key locations less far afield. And of course, there are all those plans that the “COVID era” put on the back burner, so we’ll have to see what fits into my schedule. Stay tuned!

[Photo credit: Ru Sun (See the lion outside the window?)]

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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Tanzania and Fire of Genius for the Holidays

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The end of November and beginning of December has been a whirlwind of traveling and Fire of Genius activities. I went to Tanzania, and now suddenly it’s time to order your signed copy of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius for the holidays.

One word I heard a lot in Tanzania was “Awesome!” Our small group visited several of Tanzania’s National Parks including Tarangire, Serengeti, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation area. There were all the big animals you expect to see on a photo safari, visits with three different indigenous peoples (including a morning hunt with the Hadzabe), and some of the most incredible vistas on the planet. There was even an unforgettable sunrise balloon ride over the Serengeti. I’m still digging out, but I’ll have more details and photos shortly. Here’s a taste:

Because of the trip, the timeline has jumped from Thanksgiving to the beginning of the December holidays. Which means time is getting short to buy copies of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius. You can order or pick up at all the usual booksellers – Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, and ideally, your local independent bookstore. [If they don’t have it, ask them to order it] I also have first edition copies you can order direct from me if you want a signed book. I’ll even inscribe it the way you want, either for you or to whomever you plan to gift it to for Hanukkah or Christmas or the holiday (or birthday) of your choice. Want more information on the book? Check out the videos and podcasts on my Media page. More events are being added daily.

Order here for signed copies. Want a copy sooner – check out Barnes and Noble or your local independent bookstore.

The reception for the book has been wonderful, with many people reaching out to say how much they liked it and its unique view of Abraham Lincoln. In fact, one person in my Tanzania group said they had started reading it just before heading on the trip! As always, if you like the book, please leave a rating/review on Amazon, Goodreads, and similar places.

The holidays are coming quickly, and this time of year is notorious for heavy traffic by the usual shipping companies, so ORDER NOW to ensure you receive the book in time, either for yourself or as a gift for your loved ones.

Fire of Genius

 

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The Year in Science Traveling -2021

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Lincoln at GettysburgLast year I started off my annual science traveling post with “Well, this shouldn’t take long.” Despite expectations, I could have started my 2021 post with: “Ditto.”

My year in traveling looks like my previous year’s “goals” list; just change the date and carry over everything to this year. Now I’ll be carrying most of it over to 2022. As with everyone else, I’ve grown exhausted by the continuing battle with COVID, in part due to its evolving variants, and in part due to the irresponsible choices of many to remain unvaccinated. And as with everyone else, it has crimped my traveling schedule. Luckily, I was too busy to travel in the first half of 2021, which I’ll talk more about in my annual “A Year in the Writing Life” that will come out next week.

I again planned to do a series of “Chasing Abraham Lincoln” road trips. Some were local (Richmond, Gettysburg, Washington DC), while others were a bit farther afield (Illinois, upstate New York, New England, California). All are now transferred to my 2022 plans. As usual, my goal was to get to five new countries this year. The reality is that the last trip I took out of the country was to Cuba in May 2019. Things started looking up in July when my brother proposed a two-week catamaran trip around the British Virgin Islands for November. Circumstances soon changed and that trip was cancelled. The idea of sailing around Spain and Portugal in November was put on the table, then removed literally the next day as both countries were added to the State Department’s “Do Not Travel” list due to COVID. Okay, let’s do the Caribbean instead. Same problem. All of this was after foregoing a trip to the Galapagos because we thought we would be tied up at that time.

Around the time things were getting the most depressing, I saw that a writing acquaintance was doing a self-imposed “writer’s retreat” on Long Island. It was a lightbulb moment, and before long the plan became a mini vacation on Long Island on the way to New England for a Thanksgiving visit with my family. The trip was delightful. We had no trouble getting accommodations because it was off-season, although several restaurants on the coast were closed for the same reason. But we did get to see my 60th aquarium and visit some cool museums at the Vanderbilt estate, plus hiked the beautiful fall woodlands at Sands Point. Then there was the wine tasting at Lieb Cellars vineyard. All-in-all, a wonderful trip. As was the chance to see my family for the second time in a year, a treat given the continuing restrictions.

Looking back, it seems my entire traveling year was crammed into November. Prior to leaving for Long Island, I attended my one and only in-person conference in two years. The Lincoln Forum had gone virtual in 2020, but they were intent on holding an in-person event in 2021. All attendees were required to be fully vaccinated – and prove it – in order to be present. Everyone was required to wear masks for all lectures and meetings, although removal was okay (by necessity) during meals. Around 300 people enjoyed a mostly normal Forum, exchanging ideas and learning about ideas. I was elected to the Board of Advisors. I’m happy to say that a grand total of zero reports of COVID cases arose from the meeting. Luckily for us, the omicron variant didn’t show up until just after our conference. It was nice to be back with people.

There was one additional in-person event in 2021. The Lincoln Group of DC, of which I am now president, had a tour of a local battlefield in September. We car-pooled and masked to limit exposure, with the rest of the tour being completely outside. Again, we managed to do it with no reported cases before or after.

So, what’s the plan for 2022?

Largely, the 2022 plan is “see 2021 plan.” The uncertainly of the omicron surge in cases has already sunk several plans for the spring, but I’m hoping/praying/pleading that travel is back on the table. In fact, we’ve already booked a Windstar cruise for late September/October that begins and ends in Istanbul and bounces around the Black Sea. We’re hoping to book another major travel destination in the early spring or early summer, but the options are still open for that one. September will be a busy month, in part because of the Windstar trip but also because my new book is scheduled for release on September 1. I’m likely to go to New England at least three times, the July 4th and Thanksgiving holidays and on my “Chasing Abraham Lincoln – New England” tour. I expect to be doing some road trips to accommodate a speaking tour for the book. I’ll also be checking off as many of the “local” road trips I’ve been carrying for two years.

A quick note on the “Year in Science Traveling” title. This website was originally called “Science Traveler” to reflect my intent to delve into the science of worldwide traveling. That was the plan when I left my last science job in 2013, the same year my first book came out (on Nikola Tesla, followed a few years later by Thomas Edison). I continue to travel and have plans for more science travel-related content, but regular readers will notice that I’ve renamed the website with my author name to reflect my divergent interests. Abraham Lincoln had always been my side-gig, but it’s clear to anyone reading this that Lincoln is now my main job and science traveling is the side-gig. I’m planning to revamp the website in early 2022 to make it more modern and functional. Stay tuned.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

[Photo credit: David J. Kent, 2021, Detail of “Return Visit” sculpture]

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The Year in Science Traveling – 2020

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Well, this shouldn’t take long.

Normally I catalogue all the traveling I did over the past year. Like everyone else in 2020, I experienced a case of travelus interruptus due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To say that put a damper on my travel intentions is an understatement. Most of the world won’t even let Americans cross their borders right now (how’s that for irony). Even crossing state lines is a challenge with several instituting significant barriers to visitors.

So this is how I planned for the year to go:

 

You’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So…get on your way!

(compliments of Dr. Suess: Oh, The Places You’ll Go!)

 

Instead, my traveling year looked like this:

 

Passport stamps 2020

 

Notwithstanding the allure of my kitchen, which my bathroom scale says I’ve been spending way too much time in, my original plan had included a significant amount of travel in 2020. There were to be several Lincoln-related road trips: Illinois, New England, Upstate New York/Ohio, and California. Then there would be the annual four-day Lincoln Forum and commemoration ceremony in Gettysburg. That doesn’t even count the semi-monthly forays into downtown Washington DC for Lincoln Group of DC dinner/lectures and book study group. Nor does it count the “local” trips into Richmond and other spots in Pennsylvania. None of that happened.

I had also planned a road trip through the central U.S. to visit the remaining contiguous states I hadn’t seen yet. That didn’t happen either.

More far-flung plans were to finally get to the Middle East, in particular Israel, Petra, and the Egyptian Pyramids. There also was the idea of visiting the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu. Didn’t happen.

So what did I do this year, travel-wise?

Well, I did make one road trip. Around the first year anniversary of my father’s passing and the 4th of July I drove to New England to see my mother, and as it turns out, my brother and his wife who had unexpectedly moved nearby a few weeks before. I figured there was a small window prior to COVID infections getting much worse (which turned out to be true), so squeezed in the visit not long before Massachusetts cracked down on a mandatory 14-day quarantine, later to include mandatory negative test results (and now likely, vaccination). It was the only trip I made the entire year.

To keep myself busy, and at least somewhat sane, I read more than I planned. I summarized the 90 books I read in 2020 on my Hot White Snow website. I also read a lot of Abraham Lincoln books, which I’ve documented here. Click on my Goodreads link to follow my reading travels.

Beyond that I participated in dozens of Zoom webinars and interactive presentations. My Lincoln Group of DC lectures and book study group meetings all shifted to Zoom. I gave a few presentations myself via Zoom, and have another scheduled in a couple of weeks. Many of the events worked out well enough virtually, but I know we’ll all be ready to see each other in person when safe to do so.

I also took advantage of my 2020 calendar, which features photos by David Wiegers of Abraham Lincoln statues placed all over the world. For each month I would talk about the statue of that month, but also reminisce about my own time visiting the location, or in some cases, future plans if I hadn’t already been there. What started on a whim turned out to be an interesting way to travel back in time to 12 foreign locations where the people thought honoring Lincoln was a good idea. I enjoyed the ability to travel, at least in a sense, through those posts. You can see the December post and a recap with links to all the other posts here.

Not surprisingly, I’m not even going to try to preview 2021 travel. As vaccines slowly make it out to most Americans (and overseas), I’m working on the assumption that even road trips will be curtailed at least until summer. For now it’s wait and watch. When the timing is right I’ll be ready to get back out into the world. Hopefully you’ll join me.

P.S. Check out my “A Year in the Writing Life” annual post. It has some big news, which is yet another reason I don’t expect to travel until next summer. 2021 should be a much better year!

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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Lincoln in Portugal – Wiegers Calendar July

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Setubal PortugalPerhaps one of the oddest locations for an Abraham Lincoln statue is at a winery in Portugal. Which gets us to David Wiegers’s calendar entry for July. And a chance to reminisce on my quick visit to Portugal near the three years I spent living and working in Brussels.

My first thought looking at the July photo was that this was a strange background for a Lincoln statue. Perhaps it was my early years working hazardous waste sites in New Jersey, but it looked like there were some sort of petrochemical refinery tanks, with Lincoln standing in an overgrown field. Nah, must be grain silos in the mid-west. Nope. Turns out they are fermentation tanks at the Bacalhoa winery in Setubal, Portugal.

The winery started way back in 1922 and has undergone several iterations, slowly becoming one of the most respected vineyards in the country. José Manuel Rodrigues Berardo, Portugal’s most famous art collector, became the majority shareholder in 1998, so it comes as no surprise that he created a blend of wine and art on the property. In addition to modernizing the wine-making facilities and vines, the grounds now display a large collection of exotic statuary ranging from replicas of terra cotta warriors from Xi’an, art deco, Zimbabwean soapstone sculptures, and yes, a full length standing statue of Abraham Lincoln sculpted by Charles Keck. New York City born, Keck’s works include a seated Lincoln statue in Wabash, Indiana, the Huey Long statue in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol, and a large Lewis and Clark statue in Charlottesville, Virginia. I missed seeing another Keck statue in Senn Park, Chicago, showing a barefoot young Lincoln taking a break to read a book.

Lisbon Portugal protest

My own visit to Portugal took me not far from the Lincoln statue. Setubal is just south of Lisbon, where I spent several days fighting overcast weather and occasional rain. On a multi-mile stroll I took in the grand bull ring, many marvelous statues, the huge central squares, the castle, and found myself in the middle of a labor protest. For the latter, I decided to follow along with the large crowd marching up the main road from the central square to the Monument to the Marquis of Pombal. Only after seeing the protest on the hotel television that night did I realize being in the middle of a protest march in a foreign country might not have been the best decision of the day. Luckily I also found my way out to the world-famous Oceanario de Lisboa, one of the earliest, and largest, big-tank aquariums in Europe. On another day I took the train north to Sintra, a World Heritage Site featuring the Castle of the Moors and Pena National Palace.

So as with other locations in this year of explore the Wiegers calendar series, I was close to yet another Lincoln statue outside the United States. It seems everyone likes our sixteenth president. Certainly many in the United States would like more Lincoln right now.

Until next month!

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

 

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Lincoln in Australia – Wiegers Calendar June

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Abraham Lincoln AustraliaAbraham Lincoln is in Australia! Well, maybe. It’s complicated.

The June photo in David Wiegers’s calendar is of a statue of Lincoln that supposedly stood in Melbourne, Australia. He adds a parenthetical notation – (Missing). And missing it is. Very missing. What little I’ve been able to find suggests the statue was built of white marble and installed about the time Centennial Park opened in 1888. The photo matches David’s photo. Except for one detail – Centennial Park is in Sydney, not Melbourne, Australia.

Lincoln was joined by about thirty other statues, all commissioned by New South Wales Premier Sir Henry Parkes, who some liken to Lincoln in style and ability. Among the statues was “British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, US President James Garfield, and figures representing the four seasons, commerce, science, the arts and architecture.” Then in the 1970s all the statues were removed for restoration. Neglected for decades, many of the statues were in poor condition. Poor Lincoln was missing a nose, thumb, and part of his coat. Unfortunately, most of the statues, including Lincoln, never made it back into the park and no one seems to know what happened to them. Only about ten have been accounted for, although apparently none of them was reinstalled in the park.

In 2017 I had the good fortune to visit both Sydney and Melbourne (as well as Cairns and Uluru). The closest thing to a Lincoln memorial in Melbourne is The Lincoln, a hotel and pub that may or may not be as missing as the Lincoln statue (its website link doesn’t seem to be working). I did, however, get to see the Melbourne Sea Life Aquarium and tour out of town to gaze upon the famous “12 Apostles” rock formations on the southern coast. The scientist in me noted that there was nearby FitzRoy Gardens (named after the captain of the Beagle, the ship that carried Darwin around the world) and the Cook’s Cottage, named after world traveler Captain Cook. Lincoln may be lost, but science is everywhere.

Sydney Opera House

In Sydney I was able to visit all the famous landmarks: Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Bondi Beach, and much more. I didn’t visit Centennial Park (there’s no Lincoln statue there anymore, remember), but did experience aboriginal culture and ventured out into the Blue Mountains. Of course, I also visited Sydney’s Aquarium. Absolutely beautiful.

Abraham Lincoln may be missing from Australia, but at least I got to experience much of the nation-continent. I also visited New Zealand. Given the distance and time necessary to make the trip, I may not get there again. That is, unless they find the Lincoln statue. Then I’m hopping a plane to see it.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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The Grandeur of Antelope Canyon

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The Grand Canyon gets all the press, but nearby and not to be missed is Antelope Canyon. With COVID-19 keeping most of us from any serious outdoors time, I decided to travel back in time to visit an old flame of sorts. Several years ago I arrived back in the Washington, DC area from my home in Brussels, then hopped a plane out to Las Vegas. After several days of losing money I loaded up a rental car for a road trip that took me to the Grand Canyon. The views were magnificent, both from the rim and the single prop airplane we took over the mighty gash. Then it was on to an inflatable raft and down the Colorado River from the Glen Canyon dam. I’ll have more on that later, as well as the continuing drive out to Bryce Canyon. This piece is about Antelope Canyon, another stop on the grand visit.

Antelope Canyon is actually two canyons, unimaginatively named the Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon. Both are on land belonging to the Navajo Nation tucked in between the famed Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell, the man-made reservoir created by the Glen Canyon dam. Access is limited, and to my surprise, only possible since 1997. To visit, you need to make reservations with a tour group led by a Navajo guide. Our guide made the experience much more than simply walking through the tight slot canyon. He was able to give a sense of both the geological history of canyon formation and the cultural importance of the area to the Navajo people.

Unlike the Grand Canyon’s mighty river, Antelope Canyon is dry. Visitors snake through the narrow winding passages, more like tunnels than most people’s idea of a typical canyon. No water flows through and a soft sand lines the pathway. But it wasn’t always that way. The smooth yet striated canyon walls easily reveal the canyon’s origins. Over hundreds of years, flash flooding during the monsoon season picks up sand and, as it rushes through the tight curves of Navajo sandstone –  essentially, petrified sand dunes – abrades the canyon walls into their iconic flowing designs. The dryness of the passages are deceiving; sudden rains can quickly flood the canyon. Even rains that fall far away can be funneled into the canyons with little notice. Which is one of the reasons for the mandatory guided tours.

Antelope Canyon

Our guide carried a recorder-like musical instrument, whose haunting song he played at one point in the tour. He explained that Antelope Canyon is a sacred site to the Navajo, almost like entering a cathedral. We pause and collect a sense of reverence and respect for the place we are about to enter, and the Navajo people who are our hosts. From our guide we can’t help but feel uplifted by the power of nature and the harmony of the experience. To the Navajo, this is a spiritual experience. The effect was heightened by beams of sunlight radiating down from openings in the top of the otherwise seemingly enclosed canyon. I too felt awed.

As I travel the world I find it is these small places, the ones many people never see, that inspire me the most. At Antelope Canyon I was able to experience both the science and natural wonder of the place and the deeper meaning to the Native American populations who struggle to retain their cultural history in an often unforgiving world.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Lincoln in Norway – Wiegers Calendar April

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Wiegers calendar AprilAbraham Lincoln seems to be everywhere in the world. In April of my monthly series, the David Wiegers calendar takes me back to Oslo, Norway, where Lincoln makes an appearance in Frogner Park.

Frogner Park includes an area many unofficially (and incorrectly) refer to as Vigeland Sculpture Park because of the more than 200 large sculptures by Gustav Vigeland in bronze, granite, and cast iron. For anyone who hasn’t experienced Vigeland’s work, you’ll be surprised, and perhaps even shocked, by the bizarreness of some of his statues. Favoring grotesquely caricatured nudes, Vigeland’s statues offer a variety of shapes, sizes, and attitudes of the human spirit. Many are of children, including The Angry Boy, a bronze statue that captures well the strife of the terrible twos (or maybe sevens). The vast majority of the sculptures are made of Iddefjord granite, including its most striking sculpture called The Monolith. A museum has more artwork and explanations of Vigeland’s creative process. Here’s some trivia – Vigeland also designed the medal given as the Nobel Peace Prize.

As with January’s Lincoln statue in Edinburgh, I feel foolish for not seeing the Lincoln statue in Oslo because I was there, and indeed spent quite a few hours roaming Frogner Park and the Vigeland statuary. Yet somehow I missed it. Apparently it stands just outside the park. Designed by Norwegian-American sculptor Paul Fjelde and donated in 1914 by the U.S. State of North Dakota, the large bronze bust of Lincoln sits on a granite pedestal flanked on either side by bronze tablets reading: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth” and “Presented to Norway by the people of North Dakota, U.S.A.”

While I missed Lincoln, my visit to Norway was heartwarming and inspirational. Several venues in Oslo brought out my science traveling side. The Viking Ship and Fram Museums highlight the long history of seaborne adventure in Norway. The Kon-Tiki Museum allowed me to relive my marine biology days and fascination with the Thor Heyerdahl’s thrilling adventues on both the Kon-Tiki and the Ra Expeditions. Downtown I got to tour the Nobel Peace Center where the aforementioned Nobel Peace Prize is awarded (I had also visited the Nobel Center in Stockholm, Sweden, where all the other Nobel Prizes are awarded).

Frogner Park Vigeland

A train to the western coast of Norway got me outside of Oslo, along with a side trip via a cog railway into the mountains and a boat trip through the fjords where hundreds of waterfalls from the precipices into the deep waters. The hills around Bergen offered a grand view of the coastline. There was even an aquarium in Bergen to add to my ever-expanding list.

In these days of COVID-19 quarantine, where travel is on perhaps long-term hold, these Wiegers calendar pages provide a chance to see Lincoln sculptures around the world while letting me reminisce about my previous travels. They also give me some ideas of places I want to see once the coronavirus that plagues the world has passed.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!